Taipei, Taiwan — Intersex Asia is proud to host the first-ever Asian Summit on Intersex Health: Towards a comprehensive blueprint in Taipei City, Taiwan, on the 8th and 9th of November 2025. This important gathering will bring together 37 participants, including doctors, medical professionals, and intersex human rights advocates from across 9 countries in the Asia region to build understanding, strengthen collaboration, and lay the foundation for intersex-affirmative healthcare practices in Asia. This event is also part of Intersex Asia’s Intersex Awareness Month celebration.
Across Asia, countless intersex children take their first breaths into a world that has already decided what their bodies should look like. Before they can speak, walk, or understand who they are, decisions about their bodies are often made for them. Those decisions can alter the course of their entire lives, yet without their consent. For decades, the pathologization of intersex variations has defined how the medical community approaches intersex bodies, which was to “fix” or “normalize” to fit into a binary model of sex and gender. But this perspective is changing. Around the world, medical professionals, policymakers, and intersex activists are coming together to challenge this outdated view and to respect the right to bodily autonomy of every individual, particularly intersex individuals. This Summit, organized by Intersex Asia, is part of that global movement to build a bridge between the medical field and human rights.
Why This Summit Matters
One of the most critical dimensions of intersex advocacy lies in protecting bodily autonomy, particularly in early childhood. Intersex children are often subjected to medical procedures intended to make their bodies conform to binary sex norms. These surgeries and hormone treatments are conducted before they are old enough to provide consent or can fully understand what is happening to them.
These interventions, though often framed as “necessary” or “corrective,” are deeply invasive and can leave lasting physical and psychological harm. The right to say no, the right to wait, the right to understand are the rights that every intersex child should have, yet too often are denied.
In shaping these early decisions, doctors play a pivotal role. They are often the first professionals to meet intersex children and their families, and their words, choices, and compassion carry important influence. When doctors choose to listen, to wait, and to protect, not only do they become healers, but also the first activists standing up for the rights and dignity of intersex children. Because of that, the engagement of doctors in the intersex movement, like this Asian Summit on Intersex Health has long been the missing piece to advance the movement forward.
Building Understanding, Together
The engagement between doctors and intersex activists in this Summit is not simply a collaboration. Throughout the 2 days summit, we aim to nurture this connection beyond a simple conversation, but become partners in change, the one that have a shared understanding, trust, compassion, direction and agreed objective to advance the rights of intersex individuals.
Through the Asian Summit on Intersex Health, Intersex Asia aims to:
- Build relationships with medical professionals who are committed to intersex-affirmative healthcare.
- Create a community of practice where doctors who wish to support intersex people can connect and learn from each other.
- Develop a group of supportive medical voices who can advise and inform governments on intersex issues.
- Establish a sustainable network where activists and doctors can collaborate beyond one-time consultations.
- Encourage doctors to engage more deeply and meaningfully with intersex rights and realities.
Towards an Inclusive Future
This Summit marks a turning point — from isolation to partnership, from intervention to understanding. By building relationships between intersex communities and medical professionals, Intersex Asia hopes to cultivate a long-term foundation for medical practices rooted in ethics, consent, and respect for bodily diversity.
“Only through understanding can there be true love and support. The engagement of doctors is proof that we do not stand alone. We have friends, families, and allies”. Hiker Chiu, Executive Director of Intersex Asia said.
The Asian Summit on Intersex Health represents Intersex Asia’s first step toward a unified and comprehensive roadmap for intersex-affirmative healthcare in the region. We are grateful to our strategic partners, IPPF, Enfold, co-host Taiwan National Human Rights Committee , and local partner OII Chinese, for supporting our summit. Together, we envision a future where intersex children are not seen as problems to be solved, but as individuals to be protected, loved, and celebrated.
